The Matcats made a strong push for their sixth straight divisional wrestling title Saturday but came up just short as Columbia Falls hosted the Class A Western Divisional Tournament.

The Cats, who had won the last five Western A titles, scored 214 points but came in behind Frenchtown’s 246.5. Polson was third at 211.5 and Ronan was fourth with 187.

“Obviously we wanted to win, but Frenchtown came in and did what they needed to do to end our streak. Now, we just need to look at how we need to respond and how we are going to move forward with our program to keep it competitive,” head coach Jessie Schaeffer said.

Despite being out of the running for titles in five weight classes going into Saturday’s finals, the Matcats made a strong push and had three individual champions as Ben Windauer (170), Colten McPhee (182) and Taylor Gladeau (285) each won their weight classes. The Cats also had three runners up - Brandon Thomas (132), Jakob Freeman (205) and Kyler Koski (285).

“We put ourselves in a situation where we had kids out of five weight classes after the first day, but I thought we responded very well on the second day. Most of our kids wrestled above their seed and I feel very good about going into the state tournament that way,” Schaeffer said. “All our champions competed well. My hat is off to them for having a great weekend.”

The Cats will be sending 11 wrestlers to the all-class state tournament, which begins in Billings Friday, where Schaeffer says the team will be hoping to earn a few individual titles.

“We are going to have to focus on the individual titles. We are going in without wrestlers in five weight classes, and that is going to hurt our team score,” he said. “We just need all 11 of the kids we are sending to be competitive. Ultimately, we want those kids to be standing on the podium. Whatever happens with the team race, happens.”

This was the first time Columbia Falls had hosted the Western A divisional tournament in nearly a decade, which had its pros and cons for the Cats.

“Yeah, we get to sleep in our own beds, but they also have the pressure of wanting to perform in front of their home crowd,” Schaeffer said. “We also had to get everything prepared, we didn’t just get to walk in and wrestle. There are two sides to it, but it was fun to be hosting.”

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